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Norah Jones entertains crowds at Jazz Fest.

It’s that time of year again! New Orleans is gearing up for its most unique celebration of the things that make life worth living (you know, once the Saints are out for the season). The LSU Tigers began the festivities early this year, taking over where the Saints left off by scoring an unusually undisputed BCS National Championship. Just to add a little spice to the festivities, the Tigers also proudly point out that this year’s Superbowl XLII in Phoenix will sport five former LSU football players - the most of any any NCAA school. Lord knows this city knows how to start a year off right….

For New Orleanians (and some intrepid touristas), Mardi Gras arrives just in time to take the sting out of the end of football season. Despite some recent rainy weather, parades and partymongers are already in full swing. Regardless of what mother nature has in store, the merrymaking will continue to build momentum past the Superbowl on February 3rd, right up until the big bash on Fat Tuesday rolls around February 5th. As always, Fat Tuesday will be heralded bright and early by Zulu and Rex, the kings of the Mardi Gras parades. (If you ever wondered why the revelry starts early and ends promptly at midnight, it’s because Ash Wednesday begins at 12:01 a.m. - the harbinger of the season of Lent; Carnivale festivities were originally designed to get all the debauchery out of Christian systems before the traditional Lenten sacrifices began.)

Not to be outdone by one little month-long shindig, Jazz Fest follows the season of Lent with a musical melee starring the best and brightest of both popular and independent music from around the globe. For the first time since Hurricane Katrina, Jazz Fest will be rolling out its traditional seven day format (over two weekends) starting April 25. Paste magazine offers a review of the heightened expectations for this year’s musical all-star lineup, which includes Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel, Jimmy Buffett, Tim McGraw, Santana, Sheryl Crow, Widespread Panic, The Neville Brothers, John Prine, Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint, Randy Newman, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, The Raconteurs, Maze feat. Frankie Beverly, O.A.R., Galactic, Tower of Power, Cowboy Mouth, Bettye LaVette, Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn, Buckwheat Zydeco, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Dr. John, Keyshia Cole, Diana Krall, Irma Thomas, Al Green and thousands more (check out the full schedule here). The annual battle of the bands is virtually guaranteed to have something for everyone (you haven’t experienced true rapture until you’ve seen Cowboy Mouth perform live in their home town). The biggest conundrum of the season is which stage to hit first. So grab your tickets early, head on down South, and Laissez Le Bon Temps Roulet!

Screw Randy Jackson, Nicholas Payton can blow!

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I’ll admit it. I’m part of the problem. I’m one of the uber-thousands who hums a little and pretends to dance along with that chick in the bright blue catsuit rockin’ the empty warehouse on that iPod Nano commercial. I can’t help it. She looks like Liv Tyler and sounds like Aimee Mann on a solid course of extremely effective anti-depressants.

So I decided to nose out the identity of this pepper-pop indie rocker in the awesomely sliver high heels who’s swinging through the singles charts up around the top 10 and causing me to share headphones with “the man.” Well that’d be Leslie Feist - known to her fans and iPod audiences simply as Feist. A Canadian songstress with roots in punk and fingers in lots of musical pies, Feist has rocketed to the top of the charts with the little ditty 1 2 3 4, one of several of her singles currently being featured in major marketing campaigns for companies like HBO, Urban Outfitters, eBay, and of course Apple. All companies targeting the younger, more pop-culturally sophisticated crowds, if such a paradox exists - and finance departments say it does. Successfully swooping consumers from clothes to music to the silver (or HD) screen has become the marketing ploy of choice for companies hoping that the youth of the technologically advanced world will spend some disposable income on their particular contribution to flashy fashion trends. And they will.

But if there’s one consolation in accepting that the marketing divisions of the top trendsetters have our consumer-number, it’s that they are, at the very least, setting the trends more or less right. For the most part, these companies have made a conscious effort to depart from the washed up sales model of trying to sell audiences on the product (if I see one more commercial insisting that the newest advances in toilet bowl cleaners will bring me to a spontaneous climax I might actually technicolor upchuck), and have instead turned their focus toward trying to produce something that consumers will actually appreciate - like flashy gadgets that make lovely music at the touch of an iButton and sales websites that students can afford to frequent. With the threat of consumer disinterest removed from their collective shoulders, these companies are free to go to extraordinary creative lengths to support their own consumer boom. Though the instant success of the dot-com era is a thing of the past, a good, solid luxury product is currently fighting a downhill battle to find its maximum market. EBay fills consumer pockets with iPods, which require interaction with associated internet sites, which feature music from Feist, who hocks eBay and iPods. So the consumerist ouroboros continues to swallow its own tail; but at the very least it is one splendidly well-dressed serpent.

Meanwhile Feist is one of the lucky pop culture soup surfers who gets to ride the market wave all the way to the top. Fame and fortune for her are imminent, if not recent arrivals. So we feel we can safely blame the system for leaping shamelessly onto the passing bandwagon and sharing the info. She has added a significant number of dates to her current Canadian tour, and will be the featured Saturday Night Live musical guest on November 3, with host Brian Williams.

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